The easiest way to get familiar with Instant Pot pressure cooking is to watch how the experts do it. We are going to invite a group of chefs, cooking experts and bloggers to present recipes and share their tips and tricks on using Instant Pot.

Beef Roast with Potatoes & Carrots: a One-Pot Meal

In the first of the series, Laura Pazzaglia, founder of HipPressureCooking.com, shows how to cook beef roast in Instant Pot. You’ll learn the techniques of sautéing/browning and making one-pot meal.

This recipe can be cooked with either Instant Pot IP-DUO or IP-LUX series. The detailed recipe can be found on page 20 in our free pressure cooking cookbook.

How to Make Yogurt with Instant Pot IP-DUO

Unlike the existing yogurt makers which does incubation only, Instant Pot IP-DUO can also pasteurize (scald) milk. This kills bad bacteria that interfere yogurt making and denatures the milk protein to make it more digestible.

Red Lentil Chili

Chef AJ and Dietitian Julieanna Hever present the “Red Lentil Chili” recipe. Details of this recipe and “Faux Parmesan” can be found on Page 8 in our free pressure cooking cookbook.

This recipe can be cooked with either Instant Pot IP-DUO or IP-LUX series. You can find more of Chef AJ’s recipe videos at http://www.eatunprocessed.com/.

Chicken and Pancetta Risotto

A 10 minute meal in the Instant Pot, risotto is a popular family meal.

Serves 4
Prep time: 10 mins
Cook time: 12 mins + 3 mins standing time

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, chopped

100g butter

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

50g pancetta, diced

300g diced chicken

300g Arborio rice

4 tbsp grated parmesan

100ml/. small glass white wine

800ml chicken stock

1 tbsp fresh thyme

To finish:

Grated parmesan

Freshly ground black pepper

Grated zest of 1 lemon

Basil leaves

Directions:

Press ‘Saute’ to preheat the Instant Pot, and when the words ‘Hot’ appear on the display, add the oil, and 30g of the butter to the pan. Saute the onion, garlic, pancetta and chicken for about 2 minutes.

Stir in the rice, season well, add the thyme, and stir in the wine. Press ‘Stop/cancel’. Pour in the stock and stir really well.

Press the ‘Rice’ cooking button, and adjust the time to 12 minutes. Give the risotto another really good stir, and seal the lid.

At the end of the cooking time, stir the risotto well to develop the creamy texture, and stir in the grated parmesan, and remaining butter. Leave to stand for 3 minutes.

Pressure Cooker Hard Boiled Eggs

Pressure Cooker Pasta with Sausage & Broccoli

Another wonderful recipe from Laura Pazzaglia. A classic Italian pasta dish promises creamy broccoli, crispy sausage and al dente pasta. This dish is a flavorful one pot meal that comes together with an easy technique.

Pressure Cooker Sushi Rice

Laura and her son Vittorio make sushi rice in an Instant Pot.

Making Ketchup in Your Instant Pot

If you find the regular ketchup too salty, sour or sweet, here’s how to make your own.

Baking Apples in Your Instant Pot

Yes, baking apples in Instant Pot. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by Laura and her 8-year old daughter Ada.

Hi Phil,
The time to reach pressure (warm up) depends on the volume and the temperature of the food being cooked, this is a matter of physics. Customer service is typically very responsive, though closed on the weekends. They can be reached at InstantPot.com/Support

Has the overheating problem been resolved? I apologize if this is being asked twice. This point is keeping me from getting a Duo 60 7 or a Smart pot, even though I would not know anything at all about how to use the wireless or phone functions. Can you use the Smart one without useing those functions? When is the next model coming out where the overheating and perhaps the 15 lbs of pressure so we can use it for canning have been addressed?

Hi Guion, and thank you for your interest in the DUO and the new SMART.

The “Ovht” message is a safety feature, designed to let you know that an overheating condition (over 140 C) is detected at the bottom of the cooker. This can occur under certain conditions, primarily when cooking low moisture foods which are also high in starch or sugar, and which tend to stick to the bottom of the pot and block heat dissipation. Under these conditions the sensors will slow down the heating process, and if the conditions persist, the program will switch to “keep-warm” mode to avoid burning food. Additionally, both the DUO and the SMART offer a new “low” pressure feature which should be used with these types of foods. Although some users do report this as a problem, the vast majority of Instant Pot users do not have consistent issues with overheating most dishes.

The SMART is fully functional out of the box, though the apps are a unique benefit. Canning is not recommended in any electric pressure cooker- yet. This capability is in the works, and may be available as soon as next year.

A good path forward for you may be a DUO, as you will very likely fall in love, and upgrade next year when the future canning capability is available!

Dear I.P. Staff. NOPE, OVERHEATING PROB STILL NOT FIXED WITH NEW DUO! First, may I say that I LOVE my I.P. Just got it about 2 wks ago, it’s the DUO. So far, until today, it has been AMAZING. But, I’m cooking a dish that was recommended by My Plant Based Family. She has done it with no problems, but mine keeps coming up with overheating message. I’ve taken all the food out twice now, cleaned the pot, let it all cool down and tried again. And, all 3 times, the beeping starts. When I open it, the rice is stuck to the bottom again. I’m sooo frustrated because there are many rice dishes that I’d like to try. So, obviously, the problem has NOT BEEN FIXED! What are we to do now please?

I just received my instant pot Bluetooth yesterday and tried to make chili and kept getting the overheat message. cleaned it up and tried cooking spray first, low pressure and adding more liquid. still beeping so I had to finish cooking in a pot on the stove Any suggestions for chili?

Sorry you had that experience. Please see the “Blog” here for an important message regarding a recall on the Smart Bluetooth enabled model.

Phil Ruttenburg Reply:March 14th, 2016 at 12:43 pm

These are ridiculous suggestions! Why do people have to work sooo hard just to COOK!! How about this, the customer should RETURN the product and you FIX the issues and then replace it or give her the money back!! The entire Idea of this product is it was supposed to be EASY!!!! I want to come home after a long day and turn it on and FORGET IT, just like the ads say!!!

UPDATE: Since I posted this, I HAVE NEVER AGAIN – NOT EVEN ONCE experienced an overheating problem with my DUO. I now know what I did wrong… it was MY FAULT! I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS DUO, I can’t even begin to tell you. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t used it at least once and since I have a second inner liner Stainless Steel Pot, I take one out and put the other in and start cooking again… it’s just an amazing machine.

The issue is usually related to fine particles settling on the bottom of the pot (like yeast, or flour) and acting like an insulating layer, keeping the heat localized, or a thick sauce with a high sugar content (like tomato sauce). This is usually resolved by layering the problematic ingredients on top of the rice, or adding additional liquid

Chef Reply:September 2nd, 2015 at 7:58 pm

@Nancy It would have been very helpful to all who are experiencing the overheating problem had you described what it was that you were doing wrong to cause the problem.

@Chef. Don’t know if Nancy was doing the same thing as me but I follow a Plant Based you tube videoer too and I only ever get overheat signal if I don’t keep an eye on ingredients when sautéing. I don’t use oil so have to regularly add little amounts of water and stir – just as I would if cooking on a stove top. The base of the inner pan gets very hot when sautéing so you just have to stir and keep ingredients from drying out. These days, though, I often miss out the sautéing bit as I find it totally unnecessary when not cooking with meats. Sautéing is really just for sealing meat.

I have the Instant Pot Smart and I also made the Red Lentil Chili and had the overheat come up on my display as well. I stirred it and started again and it still came up with overheat on the display. I called Instant Pot support and they told me to take half of the contents out and try again and it still came up with the overheat on the display. I then dumped all the chili out of the stainless steel liner and washed it well and then made sure the contents were cool and put it back in and the overheat came up again on the display. I am so frustrated. Anyone else have this problem? Is it a problem with my Instant Pot Smart because I made the same recipe as in the book? Please let me know. Thank you!

The OvHt is only a warning message. If you are certain that the food is not burnt, you can leave the program running. The cooker will wait for the bottom of the cooking pot to be under 140C before continue heating.

I spent over $100 on this product and these (and the other issues mentioned in this feed) are issues that need to be FIXED. It’s great that “when working” people love it, etc., but if you spend this kind of money, (in this day and age with digital products) it should ALWAYS be working and never be problematic! My phone always works, my oven always works, my microwave always works and so does my TV….if it didn’t it would be BROKEN!! I just bought our IP, only used it twice and ALL of these negative comments are concerning. I plan to RETURN this product and get a refund. Let me know when you have FIXED the issues. I hope that people, don’t accept less than GREAT and force this company to fix it.

I also had the same problem when I made the coconut fish curry recipe from the recipe book tonight! Same problem as described by the lady above: I browned all the vegetables as directed in the recipe on the Sauté function and then pressed ‘manua’l and the time indicated in the recipe, and ithe pot wouldn’t come up to Pressure. I instinctively did what you suggested above, in terms of taking the lid off and giving it a stir and trying again, but it was no use and so all the fish was overcooked and turned into mince. Apart from that, when it’s working properly, I also love my Instant Pot.

The fastest way to cool down is to take the inner pot out of the cooker. If you leave the inner pot in the cooker and leave the lid open, it’ll take 40~60 minutes for the milk to cool down enough to put in yogurt starters.

it does not only displays “ovht” message, but starts beeping loudly. and keeps doing it. Yesterday I was cooking the red lentil chili from to booklet, it again overheated, never reached pressure. i opened it up, there was nothing sticking to the bottom! I tried to cook again, to no avail – the same overheating message and loud beeping noise, that never stops. according to the manual, cooker slows down heating, so how is it supposed to reach pressure? mine does not, it just beeps and displays “OVHT” message? yesterday i let it beep for 10 minutes hoping it would reach the pressure. i did not. another instant pot dinner finished hours later on the stove! i am so disappointed! and it happened so many times! stirring does not help! and there was nothing sticking to the bottom yesterday and it was overheating anyway!

something you should talk about is the fact that if you don’t let the Instant Pot cool in between steps ie: saute and pressure cook, the pressure cooking won’t work. i had this problem a few times and contacted customer service. they told me the pot thinks it’s overheating so it won’t work properly.

because of that, i use a pan on the stove to brown my meat. it takes too long for the pot too cool and pressure cooking is supposed to be quick. this is the only down fall of the Instant Pot in my opinion. other than that, i love it.

yes, I have IP-DUO and it overheats for me, it just happened tonight, again!

Instant Pot Staff Reply:April 1st, 2014 at 8:10 pm

Hi Anna,

By overheating, do you mean that a message “Ovht” shows on the display? This is a warning message indicating over-heating condition is detected at the bottom of the cooker. This may be caused by food sticking to the bottom and blocking heat dissipation. If there is starch-rich food in the cooking pot, it would make it happen more often.

In such a situation, the cooker will slow down heating. If the situation persists, the cooker switches to keep-warm mode to avoid burning food.

To fix the issue, please open the lid, stir the food, and make sure there’s no burnt food/starch at the bottom of the cooker.

Nancy Reply:April 5th, 2015 at 9:32 am

NO, THE OVERHEATING IS STILL A PROBLEM in the DUO! Just got mine and I’ve tried 3 times to take all the food out, clean the pot, wait for it to cool down and try again.. all three times, it has OVERHEATED! What a shame. What are we to do please? The rice is what is sticking in this recipe. It’s rice with soy milk, yeast, broccoli, water. There’s a total of 5 cups of liquid to 2 cups rice if that helps. I’ve even added more water, but still it’s a problem

I have the Instant Pot Duo and made ground beef and bean chili 2 DAYS AGO (the second time using the machine). I sautéed veggies before adding the rest of the ingredients and pressure cooking. My Instant Pot did not overheat. I was, however, unable to change the sauce temp from Normal to High by pressing “adjust” and “+” as instructed by the booklet. I called the the Instant Pot Customer Care Team for assistance and left a message during business hours. My call has STILL NOT been returned:(

Karen, if you want to change a setting,it is always possible to, even though it sets quickly. If it is set to wrong time or pressure, click the off button and then you can input the correct setting. This was the first thing that I figured out the first time I used it.